Merry Christmas

Hello everyone thanks for all the LOVE you have sent my way this year!

At the local mall they have an elephant water fountain and this year they decorated the elephants for Christmas with big red santa hats and green wreaths around their necks.

Merry Christmas from Thailand!

Delivering WARMTH and LOVE

This last weekend, I was able to join a group of staff from Grace International School, to deliver blankets, warm clothing, food and some stuffed animals, to two small Thai-Karen villages located in the nearby mountains. The school and community had gathered items for a Christmas service project to heap some warmth and love on our neighbors.
Here you see our two 4-wheel drive rigs filled with donated items, even the car-top carrier was filled to overflowing! The drive, though short in actual miles, took hours of bumpy and "wild" mountain 4-wheeling. Great views...if you weren't driving ha!

The villagers came running from all over, when they heard our car engines. Every single villager shook each of our hands and greeted us in Karen. Everyone helped carry packages and boxes to the meeting house, which was a long building with tin roof and open sides and about 8 or 10 feet off the ground.

The people gathered on the floor and they sang traditional songs in Karen. the first village we visited, there are no Christians yet. Our Thai Principal gave the gospel message to the village, starting with god's promise of a Savior in Genesis and finishing in Revelation. It was amazing to watch their faces and their reactions to each part of the story.... since I didn't have a clue as to what she was sharing at the time, until I saw her stretch out her arms for the crucifixon and saw the saddness on the crowds' faces, and the laughter and joy they expressed when she next shared of the resurrection.

Each of the school staff had the opportunity to present blankets and items to members of the village. And of course there were the Official Photos. Here in Thailand it is the tradition that anytime you receive a gift, a photo is taken to commemorate the giving and receiving.

Look at that sweet face !!! We learned that these two villages are located a very long walk from the nearest Government school, so it is common for the girls to only attend school for a few years and then they are needed at home. At 13 or 14 years of age, if a girl is not attending school, then she usually gets married and starts having a family of her own.

Here is one of the typical village homes with a weaving machine on the front porch. Exteended families live in a home and help with all the work involved in daily life.

Here are some village homes, photo taken from the porch of an older home where we ate our sack lunches we had brought with us. the mountains are beautiful, lush and green. The dirt is red. there is NO level ground, their crops of rice and strawberries and vegetables or raised on terraced hillsides.

This is the meeting house at the first village we visited.

Here is our Official Photo from the first village.

Here is our Official Photo at the second village. This village...everyone but two people are Christians. they had a small cement block building as their church meeting hall. AND they were very proud that they had some plastic chairs, so their "honored" guests did not have to sit on the floor when visiting. These two villages are being ministered to by a Korean couple whose children attend Grace International School.

Here I am with a woman who is about my age, but we have led very different lives!! We prayed for her legs and hands and she wanted her photo taken with me. I spoke english and she spoke Karen and God opened our ears and hearts to each other.

Well there you have it. It was a delightful day of being able to be His hands and feet to deliver warm clothes and blankets and food, to be able to share God's love, and just to be able to connect with His sweet wonderful people here in Thailand.

Oh and by the way..... this Christmas, instead of buying cards and small gifts and spending money on the postage.... I decided to rather buy blankets to donate to these two villages. So as I was helping hand out items, it was YOU who were providing the warmth for the cold nights. These happy smiling mountain villagers are snuggled up under love from you!! Thank you for your prayers and support and for loving His people in such a lovely way.

Praying that each and everyone of you have a blessed and joyfilled Christmas!!

Merry Christmas

from Pam

delivering WARMTH and LOVE to the mountains

A sweet Christmas Celebration

This last weekend, I was invited to travel to the largest Refugee camp in Thailand, Mae La.
We parked at one of the gates, and took about a 30 minute hike INSIDE the camp, to reach the meeting hall where the Christmas Party was to be held. The whole camp looks like this photo above, brown buildings, all the same, brown dirt and mud and jungle trees. (The internet says that there are about 50 thousand families living here in homes such as these ).


We entered the meeting hall which was already packed with children, care givers and parents, who had excitedly been waiting for our arrival for over two hours!!!

We were escorted to the seats down front and the celebration got under way. There I am in the second row of a packed house!! We sang Oh Come All Ye Faithful, and then each student group got up one by one and performed something they had been practicing for months.... a Christmas Carol, a dance to Bible verses, or a traditional song or dance. It was a delightful experience. So much Joy !!!

This is one of the Karen boys who came and had a "sit and chat" with me during the afternoon. Everyone wanted to practice their English and find out about where we live and what we do. I learned a lot about what it is like to live in a camp where you can never go outside of the barbed wire fence. We both had many questions.

Below, are photos of some of the groups that performed in the program....

After the singing and dancing, we broke up into smaller groups to go play games and make crafts. Then we gathered together again for the Giving of Christmas gifts. Each child and person got gifts. Next we ate a meal together of egg soup and rice and then began the farewells.

It was a sweet sweet time of celebrating our Savior's birth and rejoicing in what He has done for us over this last year. And I came away feeling as if my own Christmas celebration was quite complete.... how could I ever top a day like this???

( If you would like to hear more about my visit to Mae La, if you have questions, or would just like to know more about refugee camps in Thailand, I would love the opportunity to chat with you. Please give me an email at pamsjoy@gmail.com I look forward to connecting with you. )

I pray that each of you have a joyful Christmas Season!!!

blessings

Pam